Friday, February 27, 2009

I can't remember when I first noticed "Unearthed," the 5-CD box set released shortly after Johnny Cash's death in 2003. It might have been a mention in Greil Marcus' "Real Life Rock" column, and it might have been during a perusal of the box set aisle at Best Buy. But one thing was certain - once I knew about it, it was only a matter of time before I bought it.

Well, it took a while. A box set of that size doesn't come cheap, and I can attest through five years of looking that the damn thing never goes on sale. Even today, on Amazon.com it is selling for $71. But eventually the watching paid off, and just after the new year I found a used copy on sale for $49.99, right at the moment when I found myself with one last Christmas gift card to spend.

The set is a magnificent testament to the Johnny Cash-Rick Rubin collaboration. If Rubin had done nothing else in his career, he would deserve to be recognized in rock history for rescuing Cash from the syrup and strings that his latter-day producers seemed bound and determined to force him into. The genius of it all is in its simplicity - I'll let Johnny sing whatever comes to mind, every now and then suggest a song that he probably wouldn't discover on his own, and then back him with the basics. And it worked - through four albums (and one released posthumously), the collaboration clicked, and in the last decade of his life Cash may have recorded more great music than he had in the twenty years before that. It's the kind of treatment that all great artists deserve, and we should all be thankful that it was so successful.

The first three discs are "out-takes" from the American Recordings sessions, but only in the sense that they didn't make it onto whichever album was being recorded at the time. There's not much to distinguish the quality of these songs from the quality of those which did end up on the albums, and in some instances it's surprising that the "Unearthed" songs didn't make the final cut. The first disc is all acoustic, just Johnny and his guitar. There isn't a bad song to be found, but the highlights for me are "Long Black Veil," "Banks of the Ohio," and "I'm Goin' to Memphis."

A good portion of Disc two is comprised of songs recorded with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and you can feel their enthusiasm on every track. As the extensive liner notes make clear, the band was awed and honored to be in the studio with Johnny, and they do themselves proud. In the notes, Petty himself ventures the opinion that the band never played better. Johnny does an admirable job on two Neil Young classics - "Heart of Gold" and "Pocahontas" - but the real highlights are the songs where Carl Perkins plays guest star ("Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby," and "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man") and an incredible duet with June, "As Long As the Grass Shall Grow."

On the third disc, you can really hear the age show up in Johnny's voice - but that just lends the songs more power and poignancy than they otherwise might have had. On "Wichita Lineman," you can hear him straining to hit the high notes, even though the song is played in a lower pitch than Glen Campbell's original. But it was with the later work that Rubin really proved his mettle as a producer. It's nothing fancy, but it's just the way that he uses single notes on the piano, or chords on the guitar, to emphasize Cash's phrasing. My favorite songs on Disc 3 are "The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore," "He Stopped Loving Her Today," the aforementioned "Wichita Lineman," and the duet with Joe Strummer, "Redemption Song," about which Greil Marcus wrote:

The weight Cash brings to the very first lines, "Oh pirates, yes they rob I/ Sold I to the merchant ship"-- a physical weight, a moral weight, the weight of age and debilitation -- is so strong it floats the song as if it were itself a ship, sailing no earthly ocean. The reversal of what would be Cash's "me" for Marley's "I" makes a crack in the earth, a man stepping into another time, another place, entering fully into another history. Then Joe Strummer comes in, plainly nervous, rushing the words precisely as he does not on the shivering version of "Redemption Song" on his own posthumous release, Streetcore: He's tight, blank, and the performance never recovers. By the end it's all but dead -- and those first moments will bring you back again and again, trying to make the recording come out differently. Five CDs don't come cheap, but the radio does, and a song like this is what the radio is for: to shock whoever's listening.

The fourth disc is again just Johnny on guitar, singing some of his favorite gospel songs, and it's very powerful - you don't have to be a religious person to enjoy his performances of these classics. The fifth disc is probably the only drawback to the entire enterprise - a "best of" containing songs from the four American Recordings albums. It's mostly a waste, for two reasons: it's highly likely that anyone buying "Unearthed" already owns those albums, and given that, they've quite likely made their own mix-tape of favorites (I know I have). But in the end that's a minor quibble - I can say without reservation that no Cash fan should be without this set in their collection.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

In the spring of 1982, there were few songs (if any) that were played more often on the 2nd floor of Cheney Hall at UC Berkeley than Pete Shelley’s “Homosapien.” I can’t remember who first introduced the song into our eclectic mix, but I remember that I was the one who went out and bought the 12” single. The first side was the “single mix,” similar to the version that you hear in this video, but with fewer guitars and more synthesizers. But the second side was the real treat – a 10-minute extravaganza, with loads of special effects, DJ-mixing, and the like.

It was that version of the song that we used to torture one of our floor mates, when he had the gall to ask a girl to dance at one of our dorm parties that none of us could stand (the feeling was mutual, believe me), and who carried about her an air of superiority that you could cut with a knife. We were in charge of the music at that particular party, and the decision was an easy one – “OK, if you’re going to dance with her, you get treated to a full workout.”

Tilda Swinton looked good; Eva Marie Saint looked elegant; Anjelica Huston chose the wrong outfit; Whoopi Goldberg was funny and probably the only person in the room who could get away with the outfit she was wearing; and Goldie Hawn seemed to have borrowed a dress out of her daughter's closet.

Long descriptions of each role...just asking for trouble? But they handled it fine.

I'm a bit surprised at Cruz' victory, but then again the supporting actor categories are always the ones with the most surprises.

I wasn't entirely sold on the concept of Hugh Jackman as host, but for the opening, he deserves at least some credit for sheer energy alone. It wasn't great - not funny enough to be remembered as a classic (see Billy Crystal), and not bad enough to be remembered as a spectacle (see Rob Lowe). The references to the blockbusters being largely shut out was funny, as was what appeared to be Jackman cracking up for real in the "Reader" section. The "here are all the stars" walkthrough was not hysterically funny, but in the end his charm won the day.

I'll be doing my first live-blog of the Oscars this evening, and will start here with my predictions. Take these with a major grain of salt, because the only Best Picture nominee I've seen is "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." I liked it a lot, but as you can see below I'm not predicting that it will win the big prize. I think this is going to be another one of those years where the awards are spread around, with a little something going to everybody. But we shall see!

Monday, February 16, 2009

This was my first venture into Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow territory, so I can't make any comment about how well (or not) it compares with their earlier collaborations. Having said that, a few random observations:

- By far, James Franco was the best thing about the movie. His stoner was right up there with Sean Penn's Jeff Spicoli in the all-time annals of great stoners. He had a lot of great lines, but I'm kind of partial to "F*ck Jeff Goldblum, man!" (It kind of loses something out of context). His fondness for civil engineers was also a great touch.

- What a waste of Gary Cole. If you're going to have Gary Cole in a comedy, you might want to think about having him do something funny (although the scene where he gives names to the various kinds of pot was pretty amusing). Anyone could have played that role, the way it was written.

- The whole high school girlfriend thing was a waste of time, although Rogen did get off a couple of good lines when he visits her in the hallway.

- The two hit men were a good, bizarre take on the 'hit man team cliche.'

Overall, I enjoyed it, but thought it could have been a little tighter. Which I admit is a strange thing to say about a stoner movie.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Another one of those Facebook thingies...cross-posted from my Facebook page.

Think of 20 albums, CDs, LPs (if you're over 40) that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Dug into your soul. Music that brought you to life when you heard it. Royally affected you, kicked you in the wasu, literally socked you in the gut, is what I mean.

Saw this one on Steven Rubio’s page. I don’t know that I can say any album changed my life, in the sense of “Wow, I bought this new Bob Dylan album, “Saved,” and decided to become a Christian!,” but these definitely played a huge role in the development of my musical taste.

1. Yesterday and Today, The Beatles. My parents gave this one to me for my birthday when I was in the 4th grade. As everyone knows, this wasn’t really an “album” at all, just a collection of tunes that had been singles, or had been on the British versions of albums that Capitol had reduced to five or six songs a side. But this is what formed my notion of what the Beatles should sound like, and even now it sounds pretty damn good.

2. Willie and the Poor Boys, Creedence Clearwater Revival. Got this one for my birthday the following year, and it began my first obsession with a band. Nearly wore it out, but still have it today.

3. Honky Chateau, Elton John. The first album I bought with my own money. For a period of 4 years in the early 1970s, Elton was a veritable hit-making machine. What people forget is that his albums were pretty good, too. “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” holds up as well as any song he’s ever written.

4. Can’t Buy A Thrill, Steely Dan. The album that opened up the possibilities of FM radio for me – because you sure weren’t going to hear most of these songs on AM.

5. Siren, Roxy Music. When I heard this for the first time, I thought it was the most mysterious, exotic thing I’d ever heard.

6. Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones. Like four albums in one, all brilliant, all as exciting today as they were in 1972.

7. Greatest Hits Vol. 2, Dionne Warwick. The perfect combination of singer, composer (Bacharach), and lyricist (David). But what really set it apart was the brilliance of the production and the arrangements.

8. Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce Springsteen. For those who know me, there probably isn’t much more I need to say.

9. The B-52s. The first new wave album I fell in love with.

10. London Calling, The Clash. Punk? Yeah. New Wave? Sure. Reggae? Yep. Top 40 Hit? Yeah, that’s in there too. A remarkable tour de force.

11. Anthology, Marvin Gaye. When a singer creates great work with producers as different in their styles as Smokey Robinson and Norman Whitfield, after a while you begin to realize that it’s the singer.

12. Frank Sinatra Sings For Only the Lonely. “The majestic artistry of Frank Sinatra,” said Tom Carson. The same could be said for arranger Nelson Riddle.

15. Time out of Mind, Bob Dylan. Greatness accentuated by the fact that it was so unexpected.

16. Play, Moby. An accident, perhaps, but a happy, brilliant one.

17. Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, P.J. Harvey. Robert Christgau: “It's a question of whether you use music to face your demons or to vault right over them. Either way the demons will be there, of course, and nobody's claiming they won't catch you by the ankle and bring you down sometime--or that facing them doesn't give you a shot at running them the f*ck over. Maybe that’s how Harvey got to where she could enjoy the fruits of her own genius and sexuality."

18. 30 #1 Hits, Elvis Presley. The once and future king.

19. Life’ll Kill Ya, Warren Zevon. And sometimes, it does.

20. American IV: The Man Comes Around, Johnny Cash. The greatest meditation on death that a musical artist has produced. Yet, hopeful and in the end uplifting.

On the other side of the aisle, Senate Minority Leader Dave Cogdill (R-Modesto) is indicating that a deal has been struck but that Republican votes are not guaranteed.

"My deal, one more time, has always been that I would try my best to get it to a position where I felt it was as good as I could get and I was willing to release my members," Cogdill said in a brief Sacramento Bee interview in the hallway outside his office. "That's where I am. So I'm not guaranteeing any votes; it's up to them [his members] to make that decision."

"But I've negotiated it to the point where I think it doesn't get any better," Cogdill said.

Well, that's helpful. A "deal" with no guarantee of votes. Sounds to me like Cogdill has yet to release his own member.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

With the admission by Alex Rodriguez that he took performance-enhancing substances during the greatest statistical period of his career, the issue of how baseball - and ultimately, the Hall of Fame - treats the great players of the "steroid generation" is back on center stage.

There are two widely disparate takes on the issue currently on display at SI.Com - one by Tom Verducci, who believes that A-Rod's interview with Peter Gammons raised more questions than it answered, and the second by Phil Taylor, who argues that history will be kinder to Rodriguez than, say, Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire, because Alex has admitted guilt and thrown himself on the mercy of the court of public opinion, while Bonds and McGwire...well, haven't.

I'm somewhere between surprised and shocked at the kid-gloves treatment that Taylor, who is usually so tough, is giving Rodriguez. A sample:

History may be kinder to A-Rod than we think. Instead of being stamped as a star who tainted his own reputation, he may one day be seen as just another member of the performance-enhancing era -- an era that given the constant advances in the science of drugs might be far from over.

I think that's a patently ridiculous argument. "Just another member of the performance-enhancing era?" What the hell does that even mean? And frankly, why should that make any difference at all in how history views these players? Why should the fact that Rodriguez isn't as a big an a**hole as Barry Bonds and isn't as big a hypocrite as Mark McGwire really matter, if the subject at hand truly is whether or not a player cheated? What this is really about, I think, is that Taylor and others like him want to set themselves up as the guardians of morality, so that it will be their ilk who give the "thumbs up or down" when these players come up for consideration to the Hall of Fame.

As far as I'm concerned, the fact that Rodriguez admitted steroid use, while Bonds seems bound and determined to go down in flames trying to prove that it was never proven that he took them has little bearing on their worthiness in the Hall of Fame. Sooner or later, the voters entrusted with making those selections are going to reach a day of reckoning, where they decide once and for all whether all, or none, of those players are going to get in. Because if we reach a day when all they are really judging is "character" - this player was a good guy, this guy was a jerk - then the whole exercise is pointless.

Monday, February 09, 2009

The Beatles arrived in New York City in February 1964, and on February 9 played The Ed Sullivan Show - one of the seminal events in rock history. Greil Marcus tells the tale:

On February 9th, 1964, I was in college in California, a rock and roll fan with creeping amnesia. I remembered Chuck Berry but not the guitar solo in “Johnny B. Goode.” The excitement, the sense of being caught up in something much bigger than one’s own private taste, had disappeared from rock years before. There was still good stuff on the radio – there had been “Heat Wave” by a group called Martha and the Vandellas the summer before, “Be True To Your School” by the Beach Boys a few months after that, and even “On Broadway” by the Drifters – but in 1963 all of it seemed drowned out by Jimmy Gilmer’s “Sugar Shack,” the Number One song of the year and perhaps the worst excuse for itself rock and roll had yet produced. Rock and roll – the radio – felt dull and stupid, a dead end.

There had been an item in the paper that day about a British rock and roll group which was to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show that night: “The Beatles” (a photo too – were those wigs, or what?). I was curious – I didn’t know they had rock and roll in England – so I went down to a commons room where there was a TV set, expecting an argument from whoever was there about which channel to watch.

Four hundred people stood transfixed as the Beatles sang “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and when the song was over the crowd exploded. People looked at the faces (and the hair) of John, Paul, George and Ringo and said yes (and who could have predicted that a few extra inches of hair would suddenly seem so right, so necessary? Brian Epstein?); they heard the Beatles’ sound and said yes to that too. What was going on? And where had all those people come from?

Saturday, February 07, 2009

For just a moment last night, the old Sacramento Kings magic was back.

The Kings retired Chris Webber's jersey last night, and a host of oldies but goodies was in the building to help celebrate the occasion: Vlade Divac, Scot Pollard, Doug Christie, Mateen Cleeves, and even Gary Payton.

Chris was visibly moved during the ceremony, and for the first time this season, the arena was at near capacity. It felt like, and sounded like, the way things were a few years ago.

Of course, this year's edition of the Kings still had to play the game, which they lost by 4 despite having a nice 10-point lead at halftime. So they're still well on track to become the worst Kings team in franchise history.

In the picture, Chris is shown on the big screen watching his jersey be lifted into the rafters.

Friday, February 06, 2009

No huge surprise in the results - when both Rolling Stone and Spin chose TV on the Radio's "Dear Science" as their top album of the year, that was a good sign that its critical support was wide and deep. I'm still not convinced the album is that good, but there are definitely a few songs on it that are first-rate.

I may have missed something, but these are the albums I own that make an appearance on this year's list:

1. "Dear Science," TV on the Radio. See above comment.

2. "Vampire Weekend." I had this one at #4 in my Top Ten. The Voice also has an essay about the polarized reaction to the band, and the record.

4. "Fleet Foxes." I had this one pegged at #2.

8. "For Emma, Forever Ago," Bon Iver. I admit that I need to spend more time with this one, but right now I'm still not hearing what has this one ranked so high. I hear fragments of songs rather than fully realized songs, and while a melody grabs me now and then, the overall atmosphere is neither dynamic nor interesting enough to sustain the feeling.

20. "Tell Tale Signs," Bob Dylan. My #1 pick.

21. "Viva La Vida," Coldplay. I had this one in my Honorable Mention section.

25. "Accelerate," R.E.M. My #5 pick. Definitely the highest they've been in the Voice poll for quite some time.

36. "Real Animal," Alejandro Escovedo. Another Honorable Mention of mine. I still think a couple of the ballads are lousy, and that pulled it out of the Top Ten for me.

Meanwhile, the legislative leadership is cloistered in secrecy with the governor, apparently close to a budget deal that, if rumors coming out of the Capitol are to be believed, just delay the difficult decisions further into the future. (Memo to Darrell Steinberg - this secrecy thing? A betrayal of everything you've stood for your entire career in public service).

The writing is on the wall, everywhere you look - California is broken. The fiscal system is broken. The Legislature is broken. The tax structure is broken. People are now beginning to feel the pain, but it's time for everyone to wake up, smell the coffee, and put their self-interest aside to reinvent the Golden State.

Meanwhile, Mona has a plan. You may not like it, but at least it's out there, for all to see. Unlike whatever roadmap our exalted leaders are coming up with, behind closed doors. In all likelihood, there will be no hearings on their plan, and the 116 other legislators will not understand it, or be able to explain or justify it to their constituents. Go ahead, give them a call - ask them to tell you what is going on in the negotiations, and see what they say. Be sure to put your hand over the receiver to muffle your laughter when you hear the answer.

Monday, February 02, 2009

I was really feeling the "don't like Mondays" blues this morning, and on a whim decided to check out this video - which I really don't ever remember seeing back when the song was a "hit."

I feel much better now, because how can you not laugh at such silliness? The song was always dumb to start with, in a way that only "serious" songs can be. And the execution of the video? It's a miracle that anyone involved was able to keep a straight face during production.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

I was thinking of Paul Zimmerman when the Steelers were marching down the field on what would turn out to be the winning drive. Zimmerman, the great Sports Illustrated writer on pro football, had multiple strokes last fall, and has been sidelined since then. One of Zimmerman's pet peeves has always been the defense that changes the way it plays late in the game, and in the process ends up letting the other team pull it out. I was too caught up in the drama to see if the Cardinals were playing any differently on that last drive, and now I won't be able to read Zimmerman to see if they were.

But in any event, I don't want to discount the play of Ben Roethlisberger and Santonio Holmes on the last drive. They were both incredible, and such are the things of which legends are made.